See, over the last few months I have been trying to accept that my time on this earth is not long. Not a single person with stage 4b inoperable colon cancer gets cured through systematic chemotherapy. The chemotherapy gives you time. Well, it gives me time. It gives you more time, with me, to hang out on the couch and watch bad tv. There. But that's it. And so I have lost the ability to think beyond my next couple of years, because it just is too painful to imagine a life you probably won't get to have. So I do okay, day to day. trip to trip, jumping out of planes, driving half way across the country with my dude and my dog, getting wasted on bourbon with my dad in Michigan, exploring big, cool empty buildings in vermont in the middle of the night. Watching "The Wire" on HBO. Watching Baseball. Watching fireflies, they never get old to me being from the west coast and all. And I do okay. I do.
But then something will get in there. Out of nowhere, unexpectedly, and I lose it, I become so filled with sadness and anger and fear. It's like nothing I would ever wish for any of you, my lovelies.
Most recently it was the song "Me and My Arrow" by Harry Nilsson. Skip this part if you don't want this song ruined for you. For those of you that don't know it, it's about a dude and his dog, and a girl leaving him but who the hell cares, cause he's got his dog...
"Me and my arrow
Taking the high road
Wherever we go, everyone knows
It's me and my arrow
And in the morning when I wake up
She may be gone, I don't know
And we make up just to break up
I'll carry on, oh yes I will"
This song came on and I looked at Nadir and Sylas (who are in love with each other!) and that line, "in the morning when I wake up, she may be gone, I don't know." It killed me, I thought of just going to the hospital one day, when the cancer gets worse, and that's the day I don't come out. And Nadir comes home, and I'm gone, and it's just him and his dog, head in hands, trying to pick up the fragmented pieces, completely alone. And I try to tell myself that he would be fine, but I think if the situation was reversed, I would not be fine. It's not possible. So I know he would be destroyed. Beyond any of the cancer, beyond any fears I have for myself, the largest one, for me, truly is leaving the people I love the most behind in pain, picking up the pieces, asking questions, asking why, unable to understand any of it.
So that's been what's rolling around in my head lately. Maybe I shouldn't have gone off those anti-depressents after all...hmm...
UNTIL YESTERDAY...everything changed, well. I shouldn't be so dramatic, everything has the potential to change. My oncologist had an upbeat attitude when talking about my further treatment. He brought us into his office, which he rarely does. And I brought it up. Surgery. In the past he has shot me down. But he was open, and even said that given my young age, and that my cancer is sort of "out of the box" then yes, we should start thinking out of the box. I think that my response to treatment being better than anyone thought or expected has helped him change his tune. That and, well I have to believe a little bit, his getting to know me as a person and a patient. The fact that he has to write me medical release letters so I can go skydiving! Kind of like "okay this girl is a fighter" or more like "okay this girl is bananas so lets see how far we can take her." Either way, I feel he is in my corner, we are on the same page, and that is looking for a chance at a cure now, not just a chance at some good years.
He has referred me for surgical consult with Dr. Daniel Labow at Mt. Sinai for consult for possible liver resection and HIPEC surgery. He might say no, he might think it's to risky, or I'm not the right candidate, but, he might say yes. If you are really interested, google HIPEC...it's a pretty wild surgery! I feel hope, hopeful at an actual life, a future, I guess I would say "kids" here if I wanted them, so instead I will say "more pit bulls." More skydiving! A future where I can listen to "Me and My Arrow again."
